It doesn't matter what they think.

This doesn't happen very often, but I was reading my Bible and just felt the need to blog. I don't know if the Lord was prompting me or what, but I just can't ignore it any more. I have been feeling like He wants me to write about the fear of man for a while and this seems to be my only quiet hour in the day when I'm not exhausted. All I really want to do is worship Him in this... so here goes.

Lord, I want to know You more. I want more intimacy with You because that is where life and breath is. When I am close to You my life is good. When I am far, my life is empty.

I want to know You.

Okay, I have been thinking a lot about the fear of man. This is sort of a Christian term for caring about what other people think of you and being affected by it. We are fearful of what they will think and how they will react and how they will judge us.

I wish I could say I was fearless. The goal of this blog is to be fearless. Fearless in my honesty and in complete vulnerability. My little sister asked me the other day if I kept a journal and yes, I do have a prayer/thought journal that I write in with my Bible time each morning, but I really thought, I think I use this blog as a sort of journal as well. When God gives me an epiphany or just to write about my struggles, I guess I do that here. But in some ways, being able to post online is a little easier than confessing directly to people, face to face, eye to eye. I want to be fearless.

A friend, whom I love because she is so bold and honest in her words, was talking to me the other day and she just blurted out about being afraid that others would judge her because of her kids and the way they act (I'm learning that children can be quite humbling some days, especially when they throw a fit in the grocery store and you have to leave hoping that no one you know saw you... you can feel the stares). 

But those stares, those judging stares, what can they do to me? What do they matter? The opinion of my friends, the opinion of my relatives, what do they matter? Even when someone praises me for something, what does it matter?

We are all dust.

I was reading in Job the other day (I often skip to the part where God speaks, I'm really bad about that). Chapter 38 is when the Lord FINALLY speaks. After all this arguing and condemning and trying to figure out what the heck God is doing, the Lord finally sets it straight. He is God and we are not. We are like tiny little ants trying to speculate what this huge, amazing, powerful being is thinking and doing. We are like little specks of dust as we point fingers at each other or tell each other that we are great or beautiful or weird. We are like clay pots who compliment each other or criticize each other, when really, it is the one who MADE the pots that deserves the glory.

God says out of the storm:

"Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions?
Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone -
while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

And it goes on and on about the things that the Lord knows that we have NO CLUE about. It's beautiful and majestic and it makes me want to weep because of the awesomeness of God. And then to weep further because he sent His Son to die the most brutal of deaths and take my punishment on himself so that I could have a relationship with Him.

Lord, teach me to worship You. I don't want to be afraid of what dust thinks of me. I want to be afraid of what You think of me. The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Help me to live in that. Let me not forget that I am dust, I am small. You are great and I am small.

What can man do to me? He can kill me, but to live is Christ and to die is gain. All flesh is grass and their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.

Father, teach me about eternity and what it means in my day to day life. I want to be living for purposes higher than what others think of me, I want to be living for You.

Okay, I think I'm done now.